Three Heads Talking of China

February 25, 2011

On April 24, 2010, I attended a panel at the 2010 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

The topic was “China: The Next Superpower?” The experts were Richard Baum, author of China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom; Zachary Karabell, Superfusion, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, China in the 21st Century.


Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Baum is an expert on politics; Karabell on money/economics, and Wasserstrom on history.

Wasserstrom said that China is not the older country. The PRC was sixty-years old while the United States was more than two hundred.

Both the Communist Civil War and the American Revolution rejected colonialism then both expanded into other countries and territories to become world powers.


Richard Baum

Baum added that the cultural differences are significant starting with Confucianism, which expresses Collective Rights instead of individual rights as in America.

Karabell mentioned that there was a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance between the United States and China.


Zachary Karabell

Many in the US believe China is unfair in world trade and that Americans lose jobs because of that.

However, China’s trade with the world is about even between exports and imports and what China buys from the United States keeps many Americans working.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

 

Note: This post first appeared on iLook China April 30, 2010 as post # 278. This revised version reappears as post # 1084.

3 Comments | China, cultural differences, economy | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 4/9

February 25, 2011

US commanders heard rumors that Communist China was moving troops close to the Chinese side of the Yalu River with North Korea.

China’s leaders did not like the US army so close to China. They feared that the US might cross into Manchuria as the Japanese had before launching World War II.

Another factor to consider was that the US supported Communist China’s enemy, Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Army (KMT) on Taiwan.

The Communists had fought a Civil War with the Nationalists from 1925 to 1949 before winning and America had provided the modern weapons the KMT had used.

American intelligence reports estimated that about 450 thousand Chinese troops might be in the hills north of the Yalu River.

As the UN army moved north, South Korea recovered from the destruction caused by the North Korean invasion.

After centuries of domination by the Mongols, Manchu, Chinese, Russians and Japanese, the South Koreans wanted to govern themselves.

However, China had ruled over Korea off and on for more than a thousand years, and the Chinese culture had a heavy influence on the Koreans. South Korea, on the other hand, did not want a Communist government.

Meanwhile, without much opposition, UN forces continued to advance toward Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

On October 24, 1950, General McArthur ordered his troops to march to the Yalu River and occupy all Korea. This caused the Chinese to attack on October 25.

Surprised, the UN troops took heavy casualties then quickly retreated south, but many died.

General Walker ordered the UN army to fall back to the Chongchon River. Once the UN forces pulled back, the Chinese stopped fighting and returned to the hills to see what the UN’s next move would be.

After several weeks of calm, General McArthur ordered another advance toward the Yalu River and fired on the Chinese positions, which caused the Chinese to attack again on November 25.

Then the Chinese found a gap between the UN forces and split the UN defensive line sending the UN army in full retreat just at the North Korean winter arrived.

As the UN army retreated south, the US 10th Corps dug in around the Chosin Reservoir, which was high in North Korea’s mountains. The brutal winter temperature there was as low as forty below zero.

Return to China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 3/9

February 24, 2011

In part two, we left General McArthur planning a risky invasion of the South Korean coastal city of Inchon.

First, most of the troops had never been involved in an amphibious landing.

Second, Inchon’s harbor was too shallow at low tide for large ships to maneuver.

To deal with these challenges, General MacArthur decided to invade in two phases synchronized with the high tides.

The first phase would occupy the island of Wolmi-do, which was opposite Inchon. The second phase would land north and south of Inchon on the next high tide.

On the morning of September 15, the US 10th Corps quickly took Wolmi-do island. The island had been bombed and shelled for several days and the North Korean troops had not been ready for such a beating.

As soon as US troops landed, the surviving North Koreans surrendered.

By the time Inchon was taken soon after the second landing, only 20 US troops had been killed.

The next move was to take Seoul, which was 25 miles from Inchon.

The North Korean troops at Pusan, a hundred thirty miles to the south, continued to fight for a week without knowing the Inchon invasion had been successful. They did not know they were in danger of being cut off and surrounded.

When word arrived, the North Korean army retreated north immediately.

As the US Marines advanced on South Korea’s capital of Seoul, they met heavy resistance in the hills surrounding the city. The North Korean troops were dug in and to remove them caused heavy US casualties.

By September 24, UN troops held the high ground above Seoul. The next day, the North Korean troops left the city and retreated north.

After occupying Seoul and having a victory parade, UN and US troops moved north toward the 38th Parallel as the North Korean army continued to retreat further into North Korea.

South Korean troops reached the 38th parallel first but kept going.

However, US troops stopped and waited while Washington D.C. debated what the next move would be—to stop at the 38th parallel or invade the north.

Return to China in 1950 Korea Protecting the Teeth – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Long History between China and Korea

February 23, 2011

Due to China’s long history with Korea, China has been asked many times recently by the US to put pressure on North Korea to get them to back down and not be so aggressive.

However, China’s response has been for the “relevant parties” to “calmly and properly handle the issue and avoid escalation of tension.” Source: Politics News

One reason for this response might be that China has a history with Korea going back to the Tang Dynasty in 688 AD, when there was an alliance with Silla, a Korean state.

Then it could be because Chinese culture, written language and political institutions have had an influence in Korea since the 4th century.

In the 14th century, Korea came under the influence  of Confucian thought influenced by Buddhism and Daoism (Taoism). 

A 1,700-year old relationship might have more weight than the one China has with America that isn’t even forty years old yet. However, measuring that weight may also depend on the trillion or more US dollars China has invested in America.

Discover Nixon in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

 

Note: This post first appeared with a different title on iLook China on May 27, 2010 at 16:00 PST as post # 361. This edited and revised version reappears today as # 1080.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 2/9

February 23, 2011

In part one, I used America’s 1823 Monroe Doctrine to show that similar reasoning was behind Mao’s decision to send the People’s Liberation Army (PLO) into Korea to fight the United States and UN.

I want to point out that China has never been a military threat to the United States, but America, Japan, Russia, Germany, Britain, France, and other countries have attacked China in the past two centuries and the cost in Chinese lives may have been as high as 100 million or more.

The embedded video says that soon after US troops entered Korea to fight the North’s invading army that if support didn’t arrive soon, the war would be short.

It was obvious that the United Nations was losing the race against time as North Korean troops put pressure on the small area behind the Naktong River near Pusan that US and United Nations troops held.

By August of 1950, the US 8th army was spread too thin. The situation looked bad.

General Walton H. Walker was the field commander of the US 8th army. During World War II, he had been one of General George S. Patton’s Army Corps commanders and was a no nonsense Texan. On July 29, he told his subordinates if I ever see you back here again it had better be in a coffin.

The only advantage the US 8th Army had was firepower. The battle raged for weeks over hills that changed hands often. After two weeks of brutal fighting, US troops managed to hold and strengthen the line.

This provided time for the United Nations to send in troops, which arrived in the port of Pusan from countries such as France, Turkey, Thailand, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ethiopia.

Most of the new troops were young and were not seasoned veterans.

Then on December 1, 1950, the North Korean Army launched a final assault. However, the North Koreans were exhausted and could not sustain the fight. 

General Douglas MacArthur, commander of all UN forces, decided to land an invasion force behind the North Korean lines at Inchon.

Seoul, the captured South Korean Capital was twenty-five miles from Inchon. It was a risky venture but MacArthur was confident of success.

Return to China in 1950 Korea Protecting the Teeth – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

1 Comment | America, capitalism, China, Chinese history, Communism, cultural differences, military | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
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